Educators debut new Hmong culture camp

Program aims to boost language skills of students

9:07 PM,
Jul. 25, 2013

Russell Harder, 7, looks at a traditional Hmong pattern on teacher Maysee Yang Herr's blouse during art class Monday, the first day of Camp Phoojywg. The camp is a weeklong program about Hmong language, culture, history and art.

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About 65 children are learning about the art, culture, history and language of the Hmong people this week in a first-of-its-kind summer program in Wausau.

Camp Phoojywg (the Hmong word for friend) - organized by Maysee Yang Herr, a professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, and Yauo Yang, a social studies teacher at D.C. Everest Middle School in Weston - aims to help Hmong children maintain or bolster their Hmong language skills and knowledge of their culture.

Most of the Hmong children in the free program are two to three generations removed from the immigration ...